


always your husband

by edvic



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Developing Friendships, Epistolary, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Sea Monsters, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 12:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13787697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edvic/pseuds/edvic
Summary: A green sweater and a pile of letters. That's all he has left of Theseus.





	always your husband

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writingramblr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingramblr/gifts).



He leaves the cottage in a hurry. 

His eyes are burning and it reminds him about the war. Gunpowder was making him sneeze.

The letter in his hand will turn to ash if he doesn't stop crumpling it so hard; still, he can't stop. Maybe, if he tries, if he destroys it, he'll be able to ignore it. Maybe he'll get his hope back.

His shirt soaks as soon as he steps out of the wild garden.

It's been raining all day long and in the darkness of late autumn he can barely see the pier. The ocean is loud, waves crashing against the shore, and this too makes him think about war. It's cannons and shots and rifles together, the whizz of air as they tumbled down. 

In the north, he sees the lighthouse. Flickering, it looks at him through the storm. He's being observed. He can't try anything stupid.

And yet, it tempts him.

His shoes slip on the wooden platform. Would it look like an accident if he tried hard enough?

The wind howls. He's almost sure he hears a voice, someone calling his name so sweetly-

He tries to reach for it, catch the unthinkable. He never thought he believed in ghost. He'd give everything to see one now.

His legs tremble. 

When he falls, the water is cold.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up on wet sand. It’s stopped raining and the silvery moon above his head looks like the croissant he shared with Theo in Marseilles.

The lighthouse is still blinking at him, always watching.

Standing up he thinks how misfortunate one must be to fail even at this, a simple task it'd seem. There's a fish scale in his mouth but not enough water to choke him.

The road back home feels like a dream, the odd kind that makes him think - only for a minute - that maybe he did succeed. The world is so serene around him, so quiet. The storm has passed. But then he reaches the wooden door painted blue, just like Theseus wanted it, and he knows it's not a dream. On the kitchen table, where he left it, a pile of letters is waiting for him.

The house is not much - three rooms, nothing more. But it's enough. Now that he's alone, it seems almost  _ too  _ much.

When Theseus was around, they used to fight about the place by the window, the one looking out to the ocean. Usually, they'd end in the armchair together. Sometimes, when he was feeling a kind of way, he'd let Theo take the seat and settle by his side, head in his lap, dozing off or pretending to read or simply looking at Theo when he thought he was asleep. 

If he could, he'd let Theo sit by the window for the rest of their life together.

But there is no way to offer it now and no reason to think about it all.

The house is cold. He doesn't bother to light the fireplace.

 

* * *

 

When he realizes the first letter is gone, he’s not sure if it makes him sad. He memorized it, the few short sentences, something about longing and how awful German cuisine is and how cold it is where they are keeping him. Nothing much. A few words on stolen paper. None of it matters now.

And still, he goes back on the pier, when the sun is getting ready to sink into the grey water - the sky only a few shades lighter - and he looks into it, wondering what fish might have eaten it, Theo's last words. If they were tasty.

He thinks Theo would like it, being eaten by a fish. There's something mythical about disappearing like this, a bit of Theo’s soul travelling deep into the ocean. 

He thinks about mermaids and tritons and selkies and ghosts of dead sailors and of the Flying Dutch, of the undead living deep underwater and the nymphs one can find near the river delta. Just like them, Theo will slowly become a myth, even to him.

There's comfort in this thought and there's sorrow too. He doesn't want to forget. He doesn't want all this pain either.

On his way back home, he finds another scale in his hair.

 

* * *

 

He starts sending Theo's letter on a Sunday afternoon.

It's not too cold and he can't sit still, thoughts running wild. There are dreams haunting him every night now, dreams of the ocean and a storm, big enough to tear his cottage apart.

"Love," he reads aloud, and it makes him feel stupid. Carefully, he looks around, but there's no one on the lonely beach, only the lighthouse in the north.

"Love," he starts again, and his voice trembles. He doesn't want to think about Theo. He has to. "I made Squadron Leader today. At last, I know you’d say, but it wasn’t about time and wouldn’t happen if not for the loss of Maguire last night."

It’s a solemn one, and he can place it easily. 1941, soon after they’d seen each other for the last time, soon after they had sent Percy to Italy. 

“Three months in this service have I been without you and still no signs that I will get out in the near future,” he reads on, hearing Theo’s voice in his head so clearly as if he’s standing next to him. “But what would I do if they let me go? If it all ended like it had started, day to day, with little respect for who we were before?”

Something splashes on his right and his heart skips a beat. 

A fish, he tries to calm himself down, only a fish.

 

* * *

 

Some days he’s so tired he can’t even leave his bed. He watches the sun wander up the white wall and then down, and even though he’s hungry, he doesn’t move. When night comes, he watches the moon. It’s soft and silver like a scale.

 

* * *

 

_ My Dearest One, _

_ Nothing much new and also it is quite late so as usual a short shorty to say hello and to let you know how much I love you.  _

_ Tomorrow we will regroup and I’d be allowed the two days of leave if not the sudden promotion. Mother will be disappointed not to see me, and I’m sure even the Squadron Leader won’t make her happy, but with things being still so uncertain in the air, I cannot leave. _

_ You wouldn’t recognize the city, love, it’s all smoke and ashes and it’s so silent sometimes a graveyard would seem a merrier place to find yourself in. It is a graveyard now, it really is. One of these nights they got the pipes and flooded the underground, but I made sure that your sister left the city in time, and so both Anne and the little ones are safe with you uncle in the south. We made it all sound like a trip to the boys and they were excited despite the great crowd at the train station. _

_ It is still hot during the day, but the evenings are cool enough to wear the sweater you gave me. I was willing to give it back to your mother, or Anne, but they both insisted I should keep it. They hope I’ll see you soon, sooner than they will have a chance, and so it’s best for me to have it. _

_ I’m afraid this letter will take a long time in reaching you. I’m sorry there’s not much more news, let alone more cheerful in tone. Just keep praying for me, like I do for you, and this way or another, we will be soon together again. _

_ All my love, _

_ T. _

 

* * *

 

He watches the ink melt in silence. When the ocean is silent - and it is silent most of these days, as if it’s trying to embrace him and all his sorrow - he can see the very moment Theo disappears. The paper is so thin it becomes see-through and then it’s gone.

There’s comfort in letting him go like this, saying goodbye day after day, one letter after another. It’s January already and he’s glad he didn’t light a fire that first night. He’s glad the ocean didn’t take him too.

The water is grey, darker as the sun sets, and so heavenly calm he feels it seep into him too.

It’s almost as if it’s watching over him, like it used to watch over sailors and fishermen in the old days when people believed, but Percy is none and he’s not sure if he believes. 

When something bubbles next to him, he doesn’t bother to look up. He got used to it.

 

* * *

 

It takes him a few weeks to realize how lucky he got with fish lately. Not a day goes by without catching some, as if they’re swimming right into arms. It’s a bit odd, but he won’t complain.

With butter and a side of lemon, they melt in his mouth.

If anything makes him wonder, it’s the odd silver scales he finds sometimes. They don’t match any fish he knows.

 

* * *

 

There are only a few letters left. 

One by one, they get less cheerful and more fatal - as if he knew, Percy thinks, as if he knew what was going to happen - and he struggles to read them. He wonders if he could simply throw them away, pretend they never existed - but he can’t harm Theo’s memory like this. 

Instead, he wears the green sweater he got from him once, before the great war, and he drinks his tea by the window looking out to the ocean - he could swear he sees someone there, near his spot, as if waiting - and when time comes, when the sun starts setting and the moon appears to light his way, he goes out, down the narrow path by the cliff, and he reads.

 

* * *

 

When he reads, Theseus seems close to him, almost alive. Not scary like a ghost but warm and made of flesh, ready to kiss him goodbye in the corner of the airshed, like he did so many times.

He wishes it could be true.

The water around his ankles moves slowly with the tide.

“Dearest,” he reads aloud, and it feels as if the ocean is really listening. It’s so quiet. “Although I shouldn’t call you dearest for I haven’t’ heard from you for three years. Dearest, I love you and want to come back to you, please always remember that.”

It surprises him how easily it comes to him. At first, he couldn’t do as much as utter Theo’s words, but now, by some unknown force, they come to him sweet like a song, just like Theo had meant them. He aches and more often than not he sheds tears and they sink into the ocean, the only goodbye he can offer, but when he comes home, he can sleep at night and his dreams are no longer of storms and war - he dreams about the ocean and the grey water and the skies above it, no longer bringing death. He dreams about Theo and the armchair by the window. Some nights, he dreams about nothing at all; other nights, he dreams about scales silver like the moon. They are soft under his feet.

 

* * *

 

There’s someone on the pier, he is almost sure.

The sun has only gotten up and normally he wouldn’t even bother to get up so early, but the rain woke him up and his feet were cold. He needed some tea.

It’s hard to be sure - the rain is falling in heavy sheets, just like that day so many months ago - but he could swear the stranger isn’t looking to the ocean but the other way around, to his own cottage. It’s odd and for a minute he feels unsure, almost scared. There are tales, old and forgotten by so many, but still present in the depths of his memory.

Something is coming and it’s coming to get him.

He shudders, from cold and fear. The tea in his hands isn’t enough to ground him.

When he looks again, the pier is empty.

 

* * *

 

_ My Darling,  _

_ It’s been so long I can’t even remember your voice. I try to, I do. And yet - it escapes me. _

_ I keep thinking about the day we first met. There was gunpowder in the air and you couldn’t stop sneezing and soon your eyes turned red and your cheeks flushed. That’s how I noticed you, in the cantine. You looked so out of place, darling, as if some fate decided for you to remain the outsider among the cadets, but to my eyes - you were the most beautiful, most precious.  _

_ Is this how souls find each other, I wonder? In the midst of destruction, last living among the dead? _

_ It’s so cold here, so lonely too. They barely let us talk to each other and the rations keep getting smaller every day. I only hope our brothers are close, that it’ll all end soon.  _

_ I would love to be there to rub your back and also your legs and even your whole body. I’ll bet you would like it too. We will do a lot of things like that, dear, when we are together again. It is the simple things that are the best in this life as I have found out. _

_ There’s so little space and the paper tears at the edges. Will you forgive me? When we see each other at last, I’ll tell you everything I can’t write. _

_ Till that day I’ll be yours forever. _

_ Loving you,  _

_ T. _

 

* * *

 

He sees it for the first time in February, on Saint Valentine’s Eve. 

He’s reading and then he hears a splash and he looks up and - there it is.

Like a man, it has a pair of eyes, dark like coal. And just like burning coal, there’s fire within them, something old and endless. Something otherworldly. Something inhuman.

If he was wiser, he’d run and never come back. Or maybe if he was stupid. He knows the tales. Sometimes running away is asking for trouble.

So he stays. 

The wood is damp after the rain and he wonders if he’ll get sick, but he stays.

If the creature is listening, it doesn’t let him know. There’s no more sound. Nothing interrupts him.

When it’s time to go home, he’s alone again.

 

* * *

 

There are only two letters left, so short he could read them in one day if not for how final it makes it all feel. He doesn’t want it to end. 

He was grieving for so long he’s not sure what was the sense of his life before.

He’ll miss Theo, maybe for the rest of his days. He’ll miss his smile and his sleepy voice and the warmth of his skin and how perfect he felt inside him; how perfect he made him feel.

But he’ll miss the ocean too. Like a friend, it helped him.

 

* * *

 

“... all your dreams come true, and if it is possible I will make them come true. We may have times that will be tough and things won’t be easy, but together we can’t fail in anything we do. I love you darling with all my heart, body and soul. Always your husband, T.”

When he finishes, he feels wind running through his fingers and though he wants to clutch onto the thin paper, he lets go. It’s not the paper that holds Theo’s memory now - it’s his heart. His heart and the ocean.

He watches the ink melt one last time. It never occurred to him how quickly it happens.

There’s sun on his skin. It feels like spring. It’s so close, on the street corner.

“I don’t have any more letters to read,” he says aloud, his voice soft.

For a long moment - so long he’s ready to believe he’s all alone - the ocean is silent, as if it’s thinking. Then, he hears a voice:

“Can’t you write some more?”

To whom, he wants to ask, but he already knows.

The creature looks at him. Its scales are silver and grey.


End file.
